


Ladybugs and Bees Can Be Friends Too

by Saikonas



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Chloe has a Split Personality, Frenemies, Gen, Ladybug - Freeform, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Is So Done, Queen Bee, We broke the Eiffel Tower again, Where is Chat Noir, idolizing, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 00:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16629752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saikonas/pseuds/Saikonas
Summary: Ladybug and Queen Bee have a great relationship, but not so much when their masks are off. Slight AU where Chloe/Queen Bee keeps her miraculous with her.





	Ladybugs and Bees Can Be Friends Too

“Tikki, spots on!!”

As the transformation overtook Marinette’s form, the black-spotted, red-clad superheroine, Ladybug, emerged with a throw of her signature yo-yo. While all akumas were urgent, most akumas were not at the level of Eiffel-Tower-falling-apart level of urgent. The smoke caused by the debris was rising and quickly starting to cover the mid-afternoon sun.

Racing through the rooftops as fast as her throwing arm would let her, Ladybug caught the glimmer of golden waves moving in the same direction. Adjusting her path towards it, Ladybug brought herself up beside Chloe Bourg-- Queen Bee as they made their way to the crumbling landmark. The distinct perfume of the Bourgeois girl was always overpowering to Ladybug’s senses, and it sometimes made it hard to differentiate the two identities.

“Ladybug! I’m so glad to see you,” Queen Bee gushed, admiring her idol and mentor adoringly, “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve been having. When I woke up this morning, my butler told me we were having eggs for breakfast. Ugh. Can you believe it? Eggs. And my usual clothes weren’t ironed like they were supposed to. Then I got to school, and there was that Marinette brat in my way again. It’s been ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Did you know--”

“Ha ha, maybe let’s save the chit-chat for later,” interrupted Ladybug with a forced laugh. She knew that if she let Queen Bee start ranting, she would go on forever.

“Ah, of course... Oh, do you like my new hairstyle? I was thinking about changing it up a bit, maybe something like yours? Who am I kidding? I could never pull it off--”

“Focus, Queen Bee.”

Ladybug sighed internally. Chat Noir was often the one to banter with Queen Bee’s overzealousness, much to the chagrin of the Highness herself. However, he had requested some time off for a couple of weeks, so it was up to Ladybug to manage the exuberant fangirl.

As they arrived on the scene, the two heroes quickly realized the extent of the damage. The Eiffel Tower was still slowly collapsing in on itself, raining twisted metal onto the street below, where tourists were still trying to evacuate. Queen Bee was stunned, having never dealt with such a large-scale event before. However, the more experienced Ladybug sprung into action.

“Queen Bee, get the citizens to safety! I’ll take care of the tower.” Ladybug had already thrown and attached her yo-yo to one of the few remaining, standing lamp posts, but stopped herself short of jumping as her fellow bug-themed partner hadn’t moved a bit. “Chloe! Snap out of it, they need our help.”

“Oh,” Queen Bee jumped, shocked back into the present, “right! You can count on me.”

Ladybug watched as Queen Bee jumped into the disaster first, and followed after her. The rookie heroine was still rough in almost every aspect of the job, but Ladybug appreciated the constant effort Queen Bee put in when she was needed. It was such that Ladybug could leave important tasks to her.

Catching a falling building wasn’t a first for the holder of the miraculous of creation, but she had never done it for anything on the scale of the Eiffel Tower. It was made much more difficult by the fact that there were no other buildings nearby for her to tether the tower to. She was tempted to use her Lucky Charm here, but she felt that she had to save it for dealing with the akuma who caused this chaos in the first place. If only Chat Noir was around, they could sure use an extra pair of hands (paws).

Expending every effort, Ladybug managed to come up with an idea. After checking that the civilians were out of the immediate danger zone, she put her plan into motion, which involved a very liberal usage of her magical yo-yo and its seemingly endless length. By wrapping up as much of the remaining structure as possible, Ladybug mustered all of her strength to keep the wreckage from falling towards more hapless people.

“Your miraculous is mine!!”

From behind her, the akuma appeared from seemingly nowhere, lunging towards the defenseless hero. With most of the structure still held up by Ladybug’s hands and the sheer amount of effort it took to keep it from collapsing, she couldn’t even spare a grunt towards her assailant. If only she had been more careful. If only she used her Lucky Charm earlier. If only Chat Noir was here.

“It’s all over now!” Ladybug could almost hear Hawkmoth’s voice coming from the akuma as she felt a pair of hands on her ears. She tried to lift a leg to blindly kick behind her, but quickly realized that there was no room to redirect her strength at anything other than holding onto the tower. There was a tug at the earrings, but Ladybug still could not let her hands go to swing them around. She felt them loosen, but was helpless to protect her most important belonging. Ladybug braced herself.

“Venom!”

Ladybug had braced herself, but nothing happened. As she slowly began to process what had happened in the last few seconds, she recognized the familiar perfume of Chloe Bourgeois.

“Are you okay, Ladybug?” Queen Bee appeared from behind with a worried look, while knocking over the paralyzed akuma victim offhandedly. Without waiting for a response, the bee-themed heroine grabbed the yo-yo string ahead of Ladybug’s hands and helped her. Their combined, synchronized efforts safely brought the tower down. Despite her super-strength, Ladybug collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

“Ladybug! Are you hurt?” Queen Bee quickly knelt down and supported the tired heroine, with a worried expression. For the first time, Ladybug noticed that the both of them were covered head-to-toe in dust from the debris. Looking at how the uptown girl’s hair was matted to one side and more black than blonde, Ladybug realized she had never seen Chloe in a less-than-perfect state.

“I-I’m fine. Just a bit tired, that’s all.” She tried to dismiss Queen Bee’s concerned looks by struggling to stand herself up. However, Queen Bee maintained her position under one of Ladybug’s arms as the latter’s legs still weakly wobbled. She had almost forgotten about the akuma still frozen in place behind the two of them. She simply took the akuma-infused item, purified the little butterfly, and with a quick “Lucky Charm!” here and a “Miraculous Ladybug!” there, Paris returned to its peaceful, former appearance.

As a result, the dust dirtying the pair of heroes was also magically washed away; although, Ladybug’s fatigue still remained. “That was amazing!” Queen Bee beamed at Ladybug, who pulled away to stand with her own strength. “Did you see how amazing I was? Did you see all those people I saved? There were these kids, and I just swooped in so majestically to save them. And there were all these people screaming so loud, but they were super thankful once I got them out. Then I saw you being crept up on, and I just knew what I had to do. Did you see? Don’t you think I was fabulous?”

Ladybug resisted the temptation to roll her eyes at the typical Bourgeois behaviour. Indeed, she was impressed, and relieved, by the other girl’s quick thinking, which ended up saving both Ladybug and all of Paris. Although, Chloe was still Chloe.

“Of course, Queen Bee,” praised Ladybug, with a gentle smile, “you did great.” Not expecting the praise from her idol, Queen Bee froze mid-hair flick, not sure of how to respond. It was not until Ladybug brought up her fist that she happily reciprocated with the trademark victory celebration.

““Pound it!””

 

* * *

 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’d let yourself wear that in public.”

Marinette was filled with conflicting emotions as she walked into the classroom and Chloe’s voice was the first thing she heard that morning. While Queen Bee was slowly trying her best to improve her attitude around Ladybug, Marinette also thought Chloe could try a bit harder. At the very least, she had hoped her personality around her classmates would have gotten better. This sort of scene was not uncommon to Marinette, who was often on the receiving end. Maybe it was because she was later than usual that she was spared Chloe’s harassment. Instead, the blonde had cornered Nathaniel at his seat near the back of the room. The poor boy was near tears as his new jacket was being unfairly mocked.

“Knock it off, Chloe.” Alya had her hands on her hips as she glared at the class bully. “At least he wears different clothes.” Chloe rolled her eyes at the comment.

“Ugh, how can you not notice these brand new glasses Daddy got me?”

“You’re the only one who would brag about something someone else did.”

“Unbelievable. This is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.” Turning up her head, Chloe retreated to elsewhere with Sabrina in tow as Marinette approached.

“Are you okay, Nathaniel?” Marinette asked softly, watching him tug at his jacket sadly.

“Thanks to Alya, yeah.”

The two girls both shared a look of disdain as they glanced at Chloe.

“Don’t you think she’s been getting nastier with Adrien gone?” Alya questioned. While Marinette thought that Chloe was just as mean as always, maybe Chloe had been more vicious lately. Although, Adrien’s empty seat in front was also just as upsetting for Marinette.

“Hopefully, he’ll be back soon,” sighed Marinette, wishing that he was back from his overseas photoshoot.

“...and Daddy bought me some croissants that were so much better than that second-rate Dupain-Cheng place.”

 

* * *

 

 

Marinette was exhausted by the end of the school day putting out the fires caused by the nuisance that was Chloe Bourgeois. Knocking over another student carrying a stack of papers, threatening to get a teacher fired, and putting up a large painting of herself in the lobby were just some of the things Marinette had to deal with (although there was no trouble, the last one was particularly irritating). Now, Marinette was actually putting out a literal fire in the chemistry lab.

“I mean, how was I supposed to know that it would catch on fire?” Chloe complained, referring to how she left a cloth near an open flame, and there was now a blaze on the table that she and Marinette shared as lab partners. Of course, the blonde was saying this while standing a safe distance away. “Can you hurry up, Marinette? All this heat is terrible for my skin.”

“Can you go away?” Marinette muttered under her breath as she directed the fire extinguisher towards the flames. Maybe a time ago, Marinette would have just screamed in the inconsiderate girl’s face, but it had become rather complicated since Ladybug had taken up a sort of mentoring role for Queen Bee. She knew first-hand that Chloe was capable of being a better person, but it was not something Marinette could openly admit. It was times like these that she could feel her composure slip.

Several intense minutes later, the fire was put out with the combined efforts of Marinette, Alya, and Nino. Their face and clothes were covered in soot from the fighting the fire, not to mention all the sweat from the heat and exertion.

“Good job, you three,” praised Juleka, as she brought mops to start cleaning up the mess from the extinguishers.

“Yeah, that was really cool.”

“That was exceptional.”

“Great job!”

“Finally.” Everyone’s face collectively fell as Chloe, who was busy filing her manicured nails, chimed in. “Could you have taken any longer?” It was directed at the three of them, but Marinette felt that the comment was targeted at her.

“You know, if you’re going to complain, you should have helped,” huffed Marinette, nearing the end of her patience.

“And ruin my perfect outfit? No way,” snorted Chloe, brushing off a speck of dust from her spotless clothes, which drove the soot-covered girl into a greater rage.

“Listen here, you li--”

“IF YOU DON’T FIND ANOTHER ONE, YOU CAN SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR JOB!”

The booming voice of Mr. Damocles echoed through the halls and drowned out Marinette’s words. It was loud enough that everyone in the classroom froze and even Chloe looked towards the hall-facing window to see what was happening.

It seemed that they were hearing the end of a conversation going unfavourably for one of the parties. This was reinforced as they saw the slumped shoulders of one of the teachers sulk past the window. It was such an odd sight that it left everyone in the class speechless. Just as they were about to look away after a minute of waiting for something else to happen, it happened.

A small, black butterfly fluttered its way past, heading in the direction that the defeated teacher went. It was definitely seen by most of them, including Marinette who had to restrain herself from instinctively running after it.

“Uh, I think I should get going.” Chloe quickly scrambled up her belongings awkwardly and briskly made for the door. She almost made it too, but Alya had beat her there.

“Nuh uh, you’re staying to clean up the mess you made,” demanded Alya, blocking the door. Surprised, Chloe stopped, not knowing if she should try to push past the grimy girl in her way.

“Ha ha, Alya, maybe you should let her go,” Marinette weakly laughed as she appeared behind Alya, gently pushing her best friend to the side. “I think I need to go to the bathroom too.”

Marinette earned herself bewildered stares from Chloe, and dumbfounded ones from the rest of the class. Alya gave her friend a look that said: “Again?” However, the urgency of the situation caused Marinette to pretend not to see it.

“Y-yeah,” stuttered Chloe, realizing she had her opening to get away. She slid out the door and disappeared around the corner.

Without another word, Marinette also completed her escape, feeling regretful for leaving her friends hanging. She ran as quickly as she could to the closest washroom, entering just in time to see a flash of gold disappearing through the window. Marinette completed her own transformation into Ladybug and leapt out the same window.

Catching up in a few quick, experienced swings, Ladybug came up alongside Queen Bee. She suppressed a sigh as the latter noticed her.

“Ladybug! I’m so happy to see you,” Queen Bee swooned. The two of them had already caught up with the akuma, since it was so close by. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. It was ridi--”

“Let’s focus, Bee.”

“Of course! <3”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this story written since Malediktator.  
> I just really want to see a Chloe redemption arc. I hope we get it in Season 3.
> 
> Don’t ask where Rena Rouge and Carapace are. They’re busy on a date.
> 
> Beta-ed by SomberSecrets.


End file.
